


the next great adventure (space road trip)

by janbjorn



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, But In Space, Gen, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Road Trips, Slow Burn, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, but it's, fall in love sometime along the way, more character tags will be added as they appear!, the story where thor heals because let him HEAL!!!, thorbruce become space detectives and save a lot of aliens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janbjorn/pseuds/janbjorn
Summary: “Do you want to go to space with me?”Banner’s smile drops, replaced with a look of shock.Silence doesn’t mean no, though, so Thor carries on with his sales pitch.“I enjoy your company, Banner, and it’ll be just like old times with The Revengers.” There’s also the fact they (probably) won’t be starting anymore revolutions and/or saving another planet from imminent doom, and they won’t be traveling through The Devil’s Anus like last time, so all things considered, it’s going to be a breeze compared to the last time they were traveling together in space.(or: Thor and Bruce's space road trip hijinks, Thor's soul learns to heal and he becomes the man he is destined to be.)





	1. I: Thor

**Author's Note:**

> hi, marvel fandom! this is my first time posting something for marvel so i'm honest to god terrified? please be nice i might actually cry. 
> 
> i love thor and this is actually the first time i've tried writing from his point of view, so i hope i'm not doing a terrible job of characterizing him (and bruce too). this is probably going to be a long fic because whenever i write something multichapter it turns out monstrous. :| 
> 
> i'll try to update once a week (every thursday at the earliest) but chances are, things'll be very sporadic because i succ. enjoy the ride!

  
****

**I**

**THOR**

 

**Thor has been to one too many funerals.**

Friend Stark’s funeral is a quiet, private event. He stands in the middle with a black suit that’s more expensive than his TV and still itches badly. Resisting the urge to scratch at the cufflinks is easy when he remembers this is a very somber, very personal event—Stark had been a good man, and they had been friends. Well. More like brothers in arms, really, but the point was that Thor knew him well enough to know he shouldn’t display improper behavior at his funeral.

“Thor, thank you for coming.” Lady ‘call me Pepper’ Potts shakes his hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed but her grip is surprisingly firm, and she does not waver in his searching gaze. The look she wears is too familiar to him; he remembers putting on a brave face when they’d burnt the pyres of the ones they lost back when New Asgard had just been established, and he remembers breaking down when the event was done, and he was left to the quiet of his chambers. He wonders if Potts would be the same, but it’s not a thought that lingers. 

She is stronger than him (the tales Stark had regaled of her, way back then, should be more than enough to attest to her mental fortitude), and he knows she will be get back on her feet, eventually. Pepper doesn’t seem the type to wallow in his grief and let the feeling consume him—not the way Thor did.

“I should’ve saved him,” Thor says, voice quiet and eyes downcast. Pepper’s hold stiffens for a moment, but it takes her barely a second to regain her composure. She places a tiny hand on his bicep, squeezing the flesh with a surprising amount of care.

“He made his choice.” He doesn’t dare to meet her eyes, afraid of what he might find. Her words reassure him, but he’s been there before—had someone reassure him with their words while their eyes pierce through him with sharp edged daggers. “It wasn’t your fault, Thor.”

Gods, what is he _doing_? Stark’s widow is comforting _him_ at Stark’s funeral. That’s not how things are supposed to go—Thor’s just a big bloody mess, that’s what he is, that he can’t even get his shit together for more than five seconds. (“Does that mean you’re a failure? Absolutely!” his mother’s words ring in his head, and he can feel the tips of his ears burn.)

“I...” _I’m still sorry,_ he wants to say, but he fears that may invoke another round of her reassuring him. So he keeps his mouth shut and nods, his body releasing tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when she moves on to the next person standing next to him. Thor doesn’t know who it is. He hadn’t been paying attention; Odin would’ve been disappointed at him for not keeping track of his surroundings, but this is a place of mourning, not one of fighting. He doubts he’d have been stabbed in the back by anyone here, anyway, after the battle they’ve just fought together.

The tent is where they keep the food and drinks. Thor’s peeked its contents earlier, before most of them arrived (Pepper graciously let him stay in one of the guest rooms after the battle because he had nowhere else to go and New Asgard was a little too far for him to leave and go back immediately the next morning), but he hadn’t found anything he’d have liked. Stark was a recovering alcoholic—he should’ve asked Stark for some tips on quitting when the man was alive, but with all the time traveling going on, the thought honestly slipped his mind—and it was a _funeral_ , so of course Lady Potts (he didn’t doubt it was anyone but her who organized the event) hadn’t gotten any alcoholic beverages for the event.

There were cheeseburgers served, which he’d considered an odd choice until he learned they were Stark’s favorite food. He would’ve happily taken a serving if his mother’s words of him getting a salad were not stuck in his head.

Overall, this is a very nice funeral. He wishes he’d been in the state to hold one as nice as this for Loki and Heimdall, but between struggling to run a collapsing kingdom and having to find a quick way to honor all of Asgard’s fallen (and so, _so_ many names were included onto the list, all these good men and women whom he was supposed to protect but he’d failed and now they were _dead_ with not even a single chance of coming back), organizing a nice private funeral for some of his closest friends (and brother) had been low on his list of priorities.

He spots Banner coming out of the tent. 

It’s a funny sight, a man of Banner’s (Hulk’s, more like) stature ducking out of a tent that is only slightly taller than he is, holding a plate closely to his chest. It’s almost adorable how gentle Banner is with items now that he’s got full consciousness while Hulked out; that’s one of the reasons why Thor heads over to approach him, not that he’s foolish enough to tell Banner that to his face. He’s still _sober_ , thank you very much.

“Banner!” he greets, keeping his voice’s usual boom to a more acceptable volume for the event. He assumes it’s working, because no one bats an eyelash. Or maybe they’re just used to him now, compared to before.

Banner lifts a giant, green hand up in a wave. “Hey, Thor.” He’d never considered a gentle smile would work on the Hulk’s face, but it does. 

“I was standing right there when I saw you coming out of the tent.” He makes a grand gesture to point at the spot he’d been standing at just a few moments before. Banner obliges him and looks, too, at the place he is pointing. Banner is a good, supportive friend. Doesn’t make fun of his whims and he’s been supportive of Thor through... everything, really. He should ask Banner to come over to New Asgard more often—Brunnhilde likes him too, not that the grouch would ever admit it. 

“Was there something you wanted, Thor?” While Banner waits for him to get to the point, he’s decided to start eating the cheeseburger, in a manner that is very neat and involves a fork and knife. Nobody eats a cheeseburger like that. Except Bruce Banner, it seems.

“You said something back in New Asgard.” Banner barely looks up from his cheeseburger, but he nods, signaling Thor to go on. “About how I helped you out of a rough spot.” Because Thor _knows_ Banner, he doesn’t question the possibility of Banner just saying that because the Avengers needed Thor’s help. Banner is a good, honest man, who has gone through Ragnarok and back with Thor. If he said Thor was the one who helped him out of a rough spot, Thor is going to believe he was the one who helped him out of a rough spot.

“Yeah, you did.” Banner’s smile is still gentle, so are his words, but they’re gentle without sounding like he’s coddling or patronizing Thor. In a world where even his advisors look upon him with unconcealed pity, it’s a nice change. “Did you want to talk more about that?”

“No.” Banner raises a brow. “Well... yes,” Thor immediately corrects, much to his embarrassment and Banner’s own amusement. “I spoke to my mother when the rabbit and I were retrieving the Aether.” 

Banner’s mouth opens slightly, forms a little ‘o’. He’s the first person Thor talks to about Frigga; the Rabbit knows he’d met his mother, but he hasn’t told the Rabbit what him and his mother had spoken of. The Rabbit hadn’t asked, either, not exactly the type to meddle into someone else’s business. Which Thor appreciates, really, because he’s not sure what he would’ve answered had the Rabbit asked.

“She told me many things.” Maybe he’s not ready to lay his soul bare to Banner, but Thor _needs_ to share at least some of the things his mother told him. He could deal with it alone, like he always has, but when he remembers how Banner had opened up to him—it has him feeling like he could do the same. As far as listening ears go, Banner is more than decent. He’s not the type to judge and there’s always been something calming about him; an antithesis to his alter-ego, but seeing as how the man’s made peace with the Hulk, maybe it’s not so much of an antithesis anymore.

Banner waits for him to continue. He’s almost halfway finished eating his cheeseburger, does it all so spotlessly that there are no crumbs or sauce hanging off his lips.

“When I told her of how much I’d failed, she called me a failure. That I was just like everyone else.”

“Ouch.” Banner makes a face, but other than that, doesn’t stop him.

“She also told me to eat a salad,” Thor adds, and in turn receives Banner’s snort of bemusement. “But then, my mother told me that I needed to be the man I was meant to be—not the man I _should_ be.” Banner goes silent once more at that, his gaze imploring. “Growing up, my father always told me I would be king one day.” And he had become king, but his younger self would be horrified to know the Asgard he rules over now is not at all the Asgard he’d expected to be the king of. He wouldn’t say Asgard is broken now, because it isn’t—their home was destroyed, half their population slaughtered, their once-revered army reduced to smithereens and they were all strong enough to endure and rebuild despite the circumstances—but Asgard has certainly come a long, long way from its glory days. (So has he.)

“I became king, but I never thought of what comes next.”

In the end, ‘next’ had become an endless cycle of drinking, getting drunk, and wasting away his days and nights with whichever of his friends were still alive. He had ruled over New Asgard quite seriously at first, attending to all of his people’s matters personally (it wasn’t even hard since there weren’t _that_ many of them left, and having to deal with broken plumbing at an Asgardian’s house was a far cry from going into battle where the universe was at stake) and rarely missing a meeting with his Council, but it didn’t take long for him to lose himself into bottles and bottles of Asgardian mead and shitty Midgard beer.

Let it be said he didn’t drink Midgardian alcohol beverages for their taste, though—the only reason why he continued drinking long after they ran out of Asgardian mead was because whether the beverage was Midgard-made or Asgardian, the drinks were always enough to get him drunk. Being drunk made him forget, and he _needed_ those few hours of forgetting—those few hours when he wouldn’t have to think about that big, ugly green purple ball sack, when he wouldn’t need to think of all those he’d lost because he wasn’t _good enough_.

“Are you looking for advice? Or...”

Banner trails off and Thor realizes he must’ve stayed silent too long. 

“No, Friend Banner.” Thor smiles. The act of smiling doesn’t come as naturally to him as it once did, but he’s been getting better—these past few days have been good to him in a way it makes him feel more like himself than he’s felt in ages—and it makes him feel warm when Banner returns his smile. “Do you want to go to space with me?”

Banner’s smile drops, replaced with a look of shock.

Silence doesn’t mean _no_ , though, so Thor carries on with his sales pitch.

“I enjoy your company, Banner, and it’ll be just like old times with The Revengers.” There’s also the fact they (probably) won’t be starting anymore revolutions and/or saving another planet from imminent doom, and they won’t be traveling through The Devil’s Anus like last time, so all things considered, it’s going to be a breeze compared to the last time they were traveling together in space.

“Thor, I don’t know...”

Thor’s face falls. Sure, he was hoping Banner would come with him, but then again, the man had practically made a new life for himself here. Now he could freely go around being green and people wouldn’t run away screaming—why would he throw away that stability for a chance to travel in space with Thor? He’s a mess now, anyways, with a beer belly and a bear’s body and there was no way Banner would’ve preferred gallivanting around space with someone like _him_ rather than spend more time on Midgard where he could get all the pancakes and pop tarts and tacos he wanted—

“Actually, you know what? I’ll do it.” Banner’s sudden change of judgment has him startling, and he looks at the scientist with wary hope. 

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t.” Banner sighs, running a hand through his hair. “But we have to look out for each other, don’t we? From one Revenger to another.” Considering how much he’d protested to the name ‘Revengers’ the first time around, hearing Banner use the word is a win. “Is Angry Girl coming too?”


	2. II: Bruce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i said i'd update once a week but i couldn't help myself (help). technically speaking i already have the third chapter written too, but i'll wait until next week (or the week after that) to post it because i want to write further ahead.
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who decided to stick around! also: shoutout to my friend warren who read what i'd written so far and was super supportive about it, even helping me think of some really cool ideas to add to the story. this one's for you, pal.

 

 

**II**

**BRUCE**

 

**He’s a little ashamed to admit half the reason why he’d accepted Thor’s offer was because he was scared. Not _of_ Thor—never that—but _for_ him.**

Bruce is a man of many regrets. He tries not to dwell on them because he’s more or less turned over a new leaf, and The Other Guy’s not a fan of when he’s sad for too long, but one of his most recent regrets is not being there for Thor when he needed him most. (Not that Thor would admit it, but Bruce is Bruce. He just knows.) He’s not going to bother defending himself because he doesn’t deserve it, but it’d been one thing after another, after Thanos’ defeat; everyone more or less went their separate ways, each of them finding their own ways to deal with their horrifying reality, and Bruce was too holed up in his own research of finding a new way to compromise with The Other Guy to really realize just how bad Thor had it.

Guiltily, he knows some of the blame’s on him for not staying in touch as much as he could have. It wouldn’t have killed neither him nor his research to take a little bit of time every day to check up on Thor, but… caught up in his own work and thoughts, he’d always thought of Thor as Thor. He always assumed Thor would find his own way of coping (and he did, but whether it was a healthy coping mechanism or not was _very_ highly debatable) and let thoughts of the god lay on the back burner of his mind.

When he came to New Asgard to fetch him, it was only then Bruce realized how wrong he was. 

“How much of this should we get?” Bruce shakes the box of cereal he’s holding just as Thor puts up five fingers. Bruce puts five boxes of cereal into their cart.

He doesn’t know why they’re at Walmart when they’re supposed to be stocking up for a trip to space, but Thor had wanted to get some extra supplies, and the closest department store to the Stark Residence was a Walmart just a fifteen-minute drive away. Pepper didn’t have a van they could borrow (there were very few cars that’d fit him), so him and Thor had walked. It hadn’t been a very long walk—the Hulk is capable of traveling at fast speeds (and it’s always amazed Bruce how his speed doesn’t need to compromise for his strength) and Thor, beer belly or not, is still Asgardian.

“My stomach has been more well-suited to Midgardian food as of late.” Thor doesn’t need to explain himself to him, even as he puts some pasta into their cart that has Bruce confused as to how they’ll cook in a spaceship. Still, he has heard Thor converse more in the past hour than he has the past week (ramblings over Jane Foster and the Aether aside), so he’s not going to stop his friend. “Do you remember the food back on Sakaar?”

Bruce laughs humorlessly. “How could I not.” While he hadn’t exactly eaten any alien food as Bruce Banner, once he’d reconciled with The Other Guy, it wasn’t hard for him to tap into the memories of him trying out the food on Sakaar. While The Other Guy enjoyed the alien food, he hadn’t, and he’d gagged on the taste of food long passed and digested, previously forgotten. 

“It was not the staple of food in the other realms.” Thor smiles wryly. “Asgard served better meals, although what we ate was not much different from Midgardian food. I think you would’ve liked it,” he adds the last bit a little shyly, sort of hesitant, and Bruce can’t help the soft smile that makes its way onto his lips at Thor’s earnest behavior.

He would’ve liked to see what Asgard was really like, before Hela and the destruction, and it was nice—reassuring, even—to hear Thor talk about his home planet. To know the memories he held of the place weren’t only the bad memories, but he also remembered the good ones. “I’ll bet,” Bruce says, and drops a jar of peanut butter into their cart. It’s one of his and The Other Guy’s favorite meals, and they don’t have peanut butter in space.

They pass by the liquor area and Bruce sees Thor’s eyes leer at the choices. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t agree with the use of alcohol—not when Thor’s so obviously using it as a clutch rather than only drinking it from time to time. 

“Hey, Thor, maybe you shouldn’t—”

Thor tears his gaze away from the assortment of drinks, looking down on the floor. Bruce looks at him, really looks at him, and he can’t help his frown when Thor refuses to lift his gaze.

They don’t really talk again afterwards, even when they’re getting mouse traps and Bruce struggles to find the brand he regularly purchases for orange juice. After, Thor returns to New Asgard, and Bruce hitches a ride with a truck to go back to his place in Manhattan.

 

* * *

 

Most of Bruce’s neighbors are used to living in close proximity to the Hulk, but since they brought back everyone who was snapped, there’s an influx of new residents (returning, more like) who stare because they’re still not used to living down the street to a Hulk who isn’t in a perpetual state of anger. Bruce waves to all the people who stare until they look away, but he perks up when a little kid waves back, much to the quiet agony and stress of their mother.

It doesn’t bother him as much as it would have five years ago. He knows they’ll get used to it eventually—even the prospect of being neighbors with the Hulk wears off and becomes novelty at some point—but it’s the most stares he has gotten since he first moved in. 

His place is empty. It has always been that way, because Bruce lives alone when he isn’t spending time in the Avengers Compound, and that place is… pretty much gone until further notice. Only a pile of rubble and dust along with waylaid parts of torn tech. He’s a little sad he won’t be able to recover some of his clothes (it’s hard to find things his size) and photos, but his place at the compound was more of a temporary residence than a permanent one. He has most of his things here.

No time like the present to start packing, he decides, and chooses to take with him his largest backpack to space. His footsteps creak even if the floorboard isn’t actually cheap (he’s just a very big guy) as he goes back and forth between rooms to fill up his bag. In the end, he manages to fill his backpack with an assortment of clothes, books, and some basic survival items. Almost like a kit.

If he closes his eyes, maybe he could even pretend this is just like the old days. He remembers being on the run with only one bag for all his earthly possessions—he has come a very long way since then.

By the time he’s done with packing, the sun has long set and he has to turn on the lights to make sure his house isn’t shrouded in darkness. Night vision’s one of the things that doesn’t bother him with his eyesight, but he’d rather not settle with dim, cave lighting when bright ambient mood lighting does wonders for his zen. He picks up a random book from his shelf and sits down on the armchair, shifting to make himself comfortable and silently hoping the chair won’t collapse (because that’d really hurt his ass), and ends up staring blankly at the cover instead of opening the book and actually reading it.

_I should check up on Thor_ , he thinks.

Him calling Thor and checking up on him now won’t change the fact he wasn’t there when Thor needed him most all those years ago, but it’s better than doing nothing.

There’s a little pang in his chest when he picks up the phone—it’s a Starkphone, its newest model, custom-made to fit perfectly in his fingers by Tony himself. Tony’s another can of regrets Bruce doesn’t quite feel like opening tonight, but he knows he failed Tony, too, when he ran away to space instead of being there for him throughout the whole Civil War ordeal. Bruce doesn’t actually _know_ if he would’ve sided with Tony because of Ross’ involvement, but it’s not like what ifs really matter in a world that had just managed to get rid of its biggest threat.

He dials Thor, and it takes Thor three rings before he picks up.

“Hello?” His voice is a low, heavy rumble, his greeting slurred. Of course he’s been drinking. Bruce swallows down the disappointment; it wouldn’t do any good to simply ask Thor to stop. There needs to be progress. Tony hadn’t quit drinking in one night.

“Thor,” he says. “What are you up to?”

“Korg is playing a video game and I’m watching him!” Thor sounds very excited to talk about Korg and his video games. “It’s not Fortnite, though. It’s—what is it, Korg?”

There’s a far off voice coming from the other line. “Mortal Kombat!”

“Mortal Kombat!” Thor echoes. “Why are you calling, Banner?”

“I’m just checking up on you,” Bruce answers, and for a while, Thor doesn’t say anything. It breaks Bruce’s heart, a little, to know just hearing the admission of someone checking up on him leaves Thor Odinson speechless. What happened to him? “Is Angry Girl there?”

Thor hiccups. “Nay,” he answers, and there’s a little pause where it sounds like something’s sloshing, and Bruce deduces he must’ve taken another swig of whatever it is he’s drinking. Probably beer. “She’s running the kingdom.”

At first, Bruce thinks Thor’s joking.

But then, Thor doesn’t say anything to correct that statement. He also sounds dead serious.

“Valkyrie’s still running your kingdom?” Bruce asks, sounding a tad bit surprised. No offense to Angry Girl, because she’s a great fighter and Bruce vaguely remembers having her fight alongside them in their final stand against Thanos, but he at least thought that Thor had gotten more of his shit together after the time heist. That he wouldn’t have let Valkyrie run the kingdom alone, the way he did when Bruce first came to fetch him all those days ago. 

“She is. I gave her the throne.”

Bruce is glad he’s not drinking or eating anything. If he wasn’t shocked before, hearing those words might’ve gotten him to choke himself to death.

“Thor—”

“Or at least temporarily,” Thor cuts him off before Bruce can start his tirade, “until I’ve figured things out.”

_You mean i_ f _you’ll figure things out_ , Bruce’s mind traitorously supplies, but he slaps the thought away just as soon as it comes into fruition. He needs to have faith in Thor. Asgard’s fate (literally) depends on it. “Okay,” he voices the word slowly, like he’s still coming to terms with that statement, because he is. “So she’s not coming with us?”

“No, not when she’s my queen regent. She’ll do a great job at it, too.” Another pause, another slosh. Bruce entertains the thought that this might be Thor’s first bottle of the night, but he’s just having a case of wishful thinking. 

“Okay.” Bruce leaves it at that. “Have you packed? We’re leaving tomorrow after Steve returns the stones, right?”

He’d have been fine with going earlier if anyone else knew how to operate the time machine, but since Bruce is the only one who knows how to use it without accidentally bringing the force of time into the person (once he learned what he was doing wrong, he figured out how to properly operate the machine, thanks to Tony’s help), he’s pretty much necessary in the Captain’s mission to return the stones back to their original timelines.

There’s also the fact he’s the one who promised to the Ancient One (that’s her name, he learned after an enlightening conversation with Doctor Strange) to return the stones back to their timelines, so it’s a little bit personal for him, too. Bruce wouldn’t feel right if he had no involvement with returning the infinity stones.

“I’ll bring…” Thor pauses, and he hums as he struggles to remember, “all the things we bought at Walmart?”

Bruce sighs into his hand. He rubs his palm over his forehead, but nods, even if Thor can’t see him. “You should also bring your clothes and your axe.”

“Right. My axe.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. (And it’s not like a drunk Thor would be the best conversation partner either, though Bruce keeps this thought to himself. It’s not a very nice thing to say.)

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Thor.” He pauses. “Goodnight.”

He reads himself to sleep that night, the sound of crashing waves played through his home speakers (and the walls are soundproofed so his neighbors have nothing to complain about), a sinking feeling in his gut that this might be his last night of peace for a while. 

Not that him and Thor have grand adventures planned for their little trip, but with his luck and Thor’s penchant for getting into trouble, Bruce’s expectations for a peaceful vacation are tragically low.

 

* * *

 

By the time Thor shows up for their trip, Bruce’s mood has soured, no thanks to one (now very old and wrinkly) Steven Grant Rogers.

The Asgardian takes one look at the frown curling on Banner’s lip and his brows knit together in concern. “Bad breakfast?”

There’s only one thing Bruce clings onto as salvation for his rapidly souring mood, and that is the fact that Thor’s breath does not smell like crappy store-bought beer. His ridiculous sunglasses are still on, though, so Bruce deduces he’s hungover. (Which serves the question of _how much_ he drank, since Bruce knows Thor is one of the best drinkers on their team—Asgardian physiology, he’d explained once.)

“The Capt.,” Bruce says through gritted teeth. It’s a good thing he’s already green, otherwise he would’ve found himself hulking out on the Starks’ very nice backyard. In the middle of nowhere, where a totally out of control, raging Hulk would’ve found sinister joy in terrorizing the various rural area animals prowling about. “He had one job. Just one.”

“Steven?” Thor sounds confused. “What did he do? He was meant to return the stones back to their timelines, was he not?”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t supposed to create more alternate timelines in the process.” Bruce takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, a frail attempt to shoo away the incoming migraine. 

He shouldn’t be so mad about it—it’s not really that big of a deal in the long run, because nothing seemed to have gone terribly wrong and yet another version of Thanos and his troops haven’t begun raining down from the sky (oh wow, the bar is really that low)—but Bruce can’t help it. He gets angry, sometimes for the littlest reasons. Even if his anger issues have gotten so much better these last few years, they’re still _there_. Things like that don’t just magically go away on their own; the human mind is fascinating and annoying that way.

“You can tell me on the way.” Thor lays a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, his trademark ‘ _is it, though_?’ fake smile looped on his lips. “Is the rabbit here?”

“You mean Rocket?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said ‘the rabbit’—”

“I am very fond of calling him that.”

“I can tell.” Bruce knows the nickname annoys Rocket, because it’s one of those things Rocket likes to rant about. (There are a lot of topics Rocket likes to rant about, and Bruce has heard of most of them over the past five years, because it turns out having a smart talking raccoon around is good for research. He’s not sure what that says about his sanity, nor does he want to know.)

“Rocket’s already on his ship. Are we traveling with his ship? Along with his family?” Once upon a time, Bruce would’ve referred to the Guardians of the Galaxy simply as Rocket’s teammates, but he knows better now. You don’t spend a lot of time with a talking raccoon and not learn some things about him, no matter how closed off of a raccoon he is; Bruce knows he considers the motley crew his family and it makes something in him wonder if that’s what the Avengers could’ve been had they not broken apart the way they had. (Had he not bailed and run away from the team after Ultron, afterwards barely being there while the team struggled to glue the remaining shards of their lost bond back together after The Snap. They haven’t talked about it and considering their track record they probably never will, but aside from their last mission to bring everyone back, the only one of the original members who really tried to keep the Avengers going was Nat.)

“Not exactly.” He hits Thor with a prodding look, but when he refuses to elaborate, Bruce does a long-suffering sigh. He has a feeling he’ll be doing that sigh more often in the coming days. “Let’s go!” 

It’s almost unsettling how fast Thor perks up and Bruce doesn’t have it in him to doubt if he closes his eyes, he could imagine Thor skipping his way to the Benatar. While Thor doesn’t hum (maybe he thinks of himself above humming? It wouldn’t surprise him), he gives off the impression of somebody being extremely chipper with the way he carries himself as if he hadn’t a care in the world. And Bruce knows how far from the truth that is. Still, it at least makes Bruce feel a little more optimistic about this whole trip. Maybe he won’t have the most fun on this endeavor, but this could be good for Thor.

(That’s all that matters.)

And if there’s anyone Bruce knows who deserves a break (and a long hug, if he’s being honest, and Bruce should really be working on giving him that well-deserved hug at some point), it’s Thor.

The two of them climb aboard the ship. It’s not Bruce’s first time on the Benatar, but being on the ship is different when him and Rocket aren’t the only occupants. It seems more alive now, with more of its usual occupants back and ready inside the ship; it’s strange, because it’s not like Rocket keeps the lights off whenever they’re on the ship, but just the fact that the other Guardians are back on their ship gives the Benatar a happy thrum.

Maybe Bruce should consider taking up another Phd in alien spaceship studies, if that existed. He’s open to that possibility. Bruce is very open minded now, actually, because one doesn’t just go through a wormhole called The Devil’s Anus and come out not thinking everything is possible at a certain level.

“Rabbit!” Thor’s voice is a jolly boom in the spaceship, leaving the Guardians stopping whatever they were previously doing to look at the newest arrivals on their ship. Bruce meekly raises his hand in a wave. One of them—the lady with the antenna, Mantis, if he’s remembering her name correctly—returns it with a wave more enthusiastic than his, not like that’s saying much. Bruce was being hesitant to the point of shyness.

“I’ve told you a _million_ times, Thor, it’s Rocket _._ R-O-C-K-E-T,” Rocket pronounces the letters of his name slowly. Bruce tries very hard not to be offended in Thor’s stead; he’d have expected Rocket to understand Thor was the furthest thing fromm a dumb blonde. And then, when he belatedly realizes Rocket really just talks like that to everyone, he’s slightly mortified to realize how protective he’s grown of his friend. 

(Maybe Thor’s even his _best_ friend now? He really should think more about these things, but Bruce isn’t the best at emotions. He’s actually pretty bad. It might be a scientist thing, or maybe it’s a Hulk thing. Could also be a _him_ thing, him meaning Bruce, but he’s not opening that can of worms right now.)

“Rabbit,” Thor completely ignores Rocket’s words, much to the raccoon’s indignant splutters and sinister mumblings. Bruce’s advanced hearing in his hulked out form lets him hear the raccoon’s choice of curses and it causes a small flush to trail up his neck. Let it be said that a talking raccoon’s vocabulary is the furthest thing from unexpressive. “I trust you remember our conversation from yesterday?”

“Yeah, probably more than you do.” It’s a pointed jab at Thor and his drinking habits. Bruce only holds himself back from saying something in Thor’s defense when the god laughs, taking the joke in stride. “Listen, this is the _only_ ship I have—”

“ _You_ have? This is _my_ ship! Since when was it yours?” One of the Guardians interrupts Rocket’s spiel. It’s funny how he actually sounds offended at the insinuation that the Benatar does not, in fact, belong to him.

Bruce thought the Benatar was a team property kind of thing. He’s not well-versed in how things work with the Guardians, so he could be wrong.

“Since I’ve been taking care of it for the past five years,” Rocket says dryly, and the Guardian shuts up. Bruce notices the guy looks… normal, actually. By far the most normal-looking one in their crew, with the face of someone he could see walking down the street and outdated (even sort of funky, like you’d see someone dressed up as him in Comic Con), but very much human, attire. He has sideburns, too, not that an alien having sideburns is surprising considering Thor used to groom his facial hair and Asgardians are pretty much aliens. Human-looking aliens commonly mistaken as gods, but still aliens. 

“If ‘ya really want that ship, you can come with us and we’ll drop you off on a planet that sells ‘em for cheap. You got any units on you?”

Thor’s lack of answer is enough of an answer for Rocket. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” He groans into his palm. “Listen, Thor, I don’t have enough units right now to lend you any. But you could take jobs. Bounty hunting makes a lot of money—”

“We are _not_ resorting to bounty hunting for money.” That’s when Bruce resolves to step into the conversation. He’s putting his foot down. “Aren’t there other ways to make money in space? Aside from hunting people for a living?” He doesn’t doubt him and Thor working together would make a very formidable duo of bounty hunters, but it’s hardly the most morally sound profession. Does Bruce need that on his conscience? No.

“I am Groot,” the talking tree helpfully supplies to their conversation from the spot where he’s comfortably seated, seatbelt carefully strapped on. 

“I’m Bruce,” Bruce introduces himself right back. The tree—Groot’s—timing to introduce himself strikes him as a little odd, but Bruce takes it in stride. “It’s nice to meet you, little guy.”

Rocket rolls his eyes. “That’s not what Groot was trying to say,” and he says it in a way that implies he’s had to tell that one too many times before.

“I am Groot!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Whatever you say, buddy.” Rocket pats Groot’s branch (arm?) affectionately, causing the tree to pout. Bruce blinks. He’s seen a lot of weird shit, but seeing a tree with a face and emoting has got to be somewhere in the top ten. Maybe even top five.

“I have heard Sakaar hosts tournaments where you could make a buck quick,” Mantis pipes up and no one bats an eye when she butchers the expression. Must be a common occurrence around these parts—it doesn’t surprise him if that were the case.

“Haven’t you heard? Sakaar is, uh, indisposed for the time being.” Bruce doesn’t have a way of knowing whether or not the country’s political climate has simmered down or not, since it’s been _five years_ , but he’s going on his last-known knowledge of the planet.

“It is?”

“We were talking about ways to make money,” Rocket intercepts before they can stray the conversation’s topic into Sakaar and whatever happened that’d driven the planet out of commission. “Look, you two, bounty hunting’s not _so_ bad.”

Both him and Thor level Rocket with incredulous looks. Bruce’s more incredulous than Thor’s. Not that it’s a competition.

Rocket sighs. “You heroes and your stupid moral compass. You can pick and choose your jobs—it’s like, what was it called again, a bulletin board.” More than several looks of confusion pass among the other Guardians. The closest human looking one appears gobsmacked that Rocket actually _knows_ stuff about life on Earth like Rocket hasn’t spent his last five years living on and off in the Avengers Compound. “Just don’t choose to hunt down the innocent people and you should be fine.”

He says it like it’s so simple, like there’s a way Bruce and Thor could just _know_ which people were good and which weren’t. Maybe if they were talking about bounty hunting on Earth him and Thor would have a better way of weeding out which people had bounties on their heads for being shitty people, but space is a different terrain entirely; they don’t have the tech to filter the people for them, and even if Bruce could theoretically develop one, it might take them years before they get to that point.

“What, you gonna ask me how you’re supposed to know, too?” Rocket asks mockingly.

When Bruce and Thor share a look instead of replying to him, Rocket actually looks like he’s done with them and he’s contemplating just getting off his ship. “I have to do _everything_ around here,” he groans. “Ask around, idiots. Rent a ship before you can buy one for all I care to hop between the planets with the best information trades, you’re bound to find the information you need if you’d just do some good, ol’ fashioned snooping.”

With all the tech Bruce had on his fingertips, he’d long outgrown ‘good ol’ fashioned snooping’. In all honesty, Bruce isn’t looking forward to resorting to it.

Thor, bless his soul, actually looks like he’s humoring the idea.

“That does not sound so bad.”

“Thor _._ ” _You can’t be serious,_ he tries to speak with his gaze, and regardless of whether or not Thor receives that message, the god shrugs.

“I don’t have any other ideas.”

“That doesn’t mean we should be _space bounty hunters_.”

“We’ll switch career paths when it comes to it,” Thor counters.

Bruce doesn’t quite yell in frustration, but his expression grows pinched. He must’ve looked miserable enough that the Guardian who looks closest to normal actually looks at him with honest to God _pity_. “Hang in there, man.”


	3. III: Thor

**III**

**THOR**

 

**He is made subject to unabashed stares from the Guardians of the Galaxy.**

Unabashed since they don’t attempt to hide their gawking as they’re the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Rocket and Nebula are the only exceptions, because they have had more than just several hours (in the midst of battle, at that) to grow used to Thor’s new… belly. Appearance. The other Guardians were dusted and did not have the years to show for it; for all they remembered, they’d encounter one Very Fit, Very Not Alcoholic but still Not Very Okay (and barely holding it together) Thor, and a few minutes later, they were met with a different Thor. One who shared the same face as the Thor they’d met, but one who was obviously _not_ okay and had had the time to process his grief.

Just because Thor understands why they stare doesn’t mean he has to like it.

He knows they are a very rowdy and nosey bunch, though, so it surprises him when it takes them a few hours before one of them breaches the topic. He’d expected it to be the Terran (Quail? Was that his name?), but he’s pleasantly surprised when the one who asks is the big, beefy warrior with ashen skin and marks all over his body. Thor doesn’t remember his name, and in his defense, it’s been five years.

“You have changed. A lot.”

There was no lead-up to that statement. Seeing as the others don’t look terribly shocked at his bluntness, Thor draws the conclusion this is standard behavior for him.

“Drax,” Quail admonishes—so Drax is his name—and he glances between Drax and Thor repeatedly in worry. “Not cool, dude. You can’t just say things like that.”

“It was a general observation,” Drax answers defensively.

The look on Quail’s face is of a man’s who knows he’s fighting a losing battle, but he’s trying anyway. It catches Thor off guard, mostly because he hadn’t thought Quail even liked him enough to try to defend his honor, but it leaves Thor enough of an impression that he resolves to try to remember Quail’s name next time.

“It’s alright,” Thor says, before Quail can say anything else. He gives the Terran a small, grateful smile, and while it’s fleeting, he knows Quail noticed it. “A great deal of things happened between defeating _him_ for the first time and running my kingdom.”

“Your kingdom—Asgard?” Huh. He hadn’t thought Quail would’ve remembered, but it makes sense why he did. Only two days, at most, had passed for him since Quail and his group first discovered Thor floating in space half-dead.

“Yes.” Thor’s answering smile is warm, the way it always is when he talks about Asgard with people who are not from Asgard.

“I thought you said…” Quail doesn’t finish the sentence, seemingly uncomfortable.

“We survived.” Thor stands up from where he’d been sitting. He needs a drink, but he’s not sure if the Guardians actually keep any alcohol aboard their ship. He should ask the rabbit. “Us Asgardians are very sturdy. Some might even say we’re hard to kill.”

His brother was the hardest of them all to kill, Thor thinks privately, remembering all the times he had thought Loki was dead only for Loki to prove him wrong in ways that, more often than not, bit him in the arse. Sometimes he finds himself holding out hope Loki is actually alive and will turn up one day, out of the blue, to stab him and announce he’d faked his death (again) and was now ready to let Thor know he was alive, back, and better than ever. That day never came and the longer time passes between what happened on the Statesman and the present, the smaller Thor’s fragile hope shrinks.

"I am Groot,” the tree wisely adds into their conversation. Thor’s Allspeak lets him understand Groot, of course, and it causes him to break out in a true, honest grin.

“Thank you, Friend.”

“You are in great turmoil,” the lady of the group (Nebula aside, but he knows Nebula doesn’t much enjoy being called a lady—it has her seething, for some reason, but then again she _always_ seems to be seething) mentions, her brows knitted together as her antennae glow. Thor is not overly concerned; he knows she isn’t hostile, and if she were doing anything to harm him, he would’ve felt it. (Not the smartest argument, but it’s a lot less flawed in his head.)

“Sure am. I’m starving and I don’t think I brought enough Lucky Charms for us all,” he deflects, and the smile that replaces his previously true grin is so artificial that his cheeks strain.

“Lucky Charms?” Quail sounds interested.

“Lucky Charms,” Thor affirms, dead serious. “They’re good. _Very_ good.”

“No, I _know_ they’re good. I remember having them. Way back then.” Quail’s voice grows smaller by the end, but he’s able to shake himself out of the funk he dug himself into. “I don’t really remember what they taste like.” He frowns, and looks at Thor with startling clarity. Thor gets the vague idea that Quail cherishes and latches onto whatever connections he had to Midgard—not that he knows for _sure_ , but Thor just catches this… vibe. “You have some with you?”

“Aye. I was thinking of having them later, but I _am_ hungry now.” He has to take several seconds to search through the bag he’d carried specifically for sustenance to find the box, but he manages to dig it up. When he’s found it, he discovers he still holds Quail’s rapt attention.

“I am not opposed to sharing these Lucky Charms, Quail.”

“That’d be—hey man, it’s _Quill_ , not Quail!”

“That’s what I said, Quail.”

* * *

 

Nebula pulls him aside when they’ve almost arrived at their destination planet. Banner is chatting with the Guardians, trying to figure out more about alien tech for his and Thor’s sake, and Thor hasn’t gotten the chance to speak to the cyborg. Nebula’s not a talker, and neither is Thor. That’s part of the reason why he’s more than a little surprised she even bothered to start a conversation with him at all.

“Thor,” he can sense she’s about to get right to it, and he awkwardly attempts to stand straighter, the way he was taught to do when he was a child. It’s the way a king should stand, Odin would say, but Thor hasn’t gotten over the bad habit of hunching in on himself since he began ruling. It was not a very kingly way of standing, but Thor doesn’t think there’s a lot about him that’s kingly at all.

“I have several contacts in this planet who can help you rent a ship.”

Thor blinks. Whatever it is he’d been expecting her to say, this wasn’t it. It has him feeling a little shameful, because he knows she was on the side of the Avengers even since before the final battle—she’d been the one with Stark in space, wasn’t she?—but she’d always been so stoic that Thor never knew what exactly to expect. There was also the matter of her being one of Thanos’ daughters, or so he’d heard through the grapevine, but he knew better than to judge her for that. Like he’d once said to Gamora—families can be tough.

“Were they loyal to…?”

He’s grateful how her eyes seem to shift in understanding, even without him having to say _his_ name. It’s silly how he hasn’t gotten over his fear of Thanos’ name. He’s seen the ugly purple ball sack killed twice, the first time by his own hand. He shouldn’t have some lingering fear of him left, but here he is. A pathetic failure, as always.

“They were loyal to the highest bidder.” So, not good, but not terrible odds either. Thor’s had less reliable allies. “You should be able to find them here.” She looks around very conspicuously before handing over a slip of paper to him, her eyes still trained on the other corners of the room.

Thor follows her eyes, even as he takes the paper from her and puts it inside his pocket. “What are we looking at?”

Nebula huffs, managing to scowl even harder. Thor is reluctantly impressed. “Just making sure none of these idiots were listening in.”

“Is that something to worry about? The others are all over there with Banner.”

The android gives him a flat look. She is completely bemused and leaves Thor feeling a little out of his depth here. “You don’t know these idiots like I do.”

 

* * *

 

“Not that I’m not glad we’re taking the honest road, but why don’t we just steal another ship?”

Banner asks that question when as they’re walking in the middle of nowhere, not even sure how far they are into their trek and only half-sure they’re going in the right direction. It is not at all reassuring that Gunia seems to be made of old, sandy roads and desert planes, and Banner made a comment on how it looks like they’re in a ‘wild west’ movie as soon as they landed. Thor doesn’t completely understand the reference—he dabbles on the side of modern pop culture for Midgardians and doesn’t find himself too interested in whatever was popular in the past—but he _does_ know cowboys (Stark’s made a reference to it once and he’d been curious), and even he can admit the comparison is not totally off.

“I’m not opposed to stealing a ship if we aren’t successful in haggling one,” Thor answers carefully.

Banner laughs haplessly. “It’s good to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t have any third thoughts on stealing alien spaceships anymore.”

“We shouldn’t steal one from somebody who _really_ needs it, though,” Thor adds, because otherwise he’d just feel Very Bad about making the suggestion to possibly steal an innocent man’s (or creature’s, he didn’t know what they were up against) vehicle. “Unless they’re really bad people.”

“Of course. Who do you think I am?” Banner actually sounds a little miffed.

“A good man, doctor,” Thor answers, totally serious and honest. When Banner goes quiet, it’s only then Thor realizes Banner was joking around with him. Somehow, he doesn’t care the good doctor was able to get an honest admission out of Thor while he thought they were jesting.

They stop when the purple blob that looks a little bit like the sun except it isn’t nearly as bright nor as big is eaten by this planet’s night. There are no stars in the sky, but there is a pink moon, and Banner keeps gazing up at it every so often as they sit and catch their breath. They’d made (he presumes) good distance, and Banner looks like he can keep going, but Thor’s a different case. He has already started going out of breath and huffing out short, little puffs, his face flushing red to his neck and little droplets of sweat beading down his forehead. He’s even able to taste some salt on his tongue, which, ew. Gross.

“I need to get in shape,” Thor huffs. He hadn’t felt the budding exhaustion when they were in battle, mostly because they were in _battle_ and he was running off adrenaline and fear. (Fear is a greater motivator than anyone expects it to be.) But now that he can actually feel the change in his body this way, it’s different.

Thor knows his body. He knows he used to be able to walk for longer without getting winded— _has_ done that before in his youth with his brother, Lady Sif, and The Warriors Three—and not for the first time, he’s morbidly glad none of his old friends were there to see him lose himself and become… whatever he was now. Lady Sif would’ve been understanding in her own way, but Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun? He’s sure they would’ve understood him at some point, but not before getting in their fair share of jokes first. And Loki… well, Loki’s always dished whatever he thinks Thor can take (and sometimes going beyond that, but they were still working on that before The Statesman happened).

Banner hums. “I think you’re doing okay for yourself right now, Thor,” he says carefully, like he’s not sure what comment to say as to not set Thor off.

He appreciates the sentiment behind it. Out of all the Avengers, Thor only remembers Banner to be the one who’d been most gracious after seeing his change of physique. Captain America too, he supposes, but Steven has always been too kind to point out things like someone’s appearance. That was just one of the few attributes that’d made him worthy of wielding Mjolnir. Oh, Natasha was gracious about it, too—it leaves a belated realization that he was still holding out hope they’d be able to bring her back (and maybe even Stark), somehow.

Thor has never been good at accepting the losses of his friends. Or rather, he is, but he’s always trying to find possible ways they might have lived instead; that was the only reason why he hadn’t completely let himself grieve along with the other Avengers when they held their own private funeral for their spy, an event that was made even more depressing when he remembers they didn’t even get a body to bury.

“Banner, if you wanted to get me to blush, all you had to do was compliment my hair,” Thor says, leaving his companion chuckling. “I brought us a pan so we could cook pasta.”

That leaves Banner choking on his chuckles. “You even brought a pan? How’d it fit into your bag?”

“You seem to have forgotten I have bags that were not made on Midgard.”

“So you’re saying there’s alien tech that makes bags, what, bigger on the inside?”

“It wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’ve seen technology create, Banner.”

Banner makes a thoughtful sound. “You’re not wrong. Still, that defies _all_ the laws of physics. Where is all the extra storage even from?”

“You want to talk about this defying the laws of physics? Have you _seen_ Doctor Strange?”

Thor doesn’t actually know Stephen Strange that well, but he remembers his first encounter with the sorcerer all the same. It’s not everyday a Midgardian sorcerer is able to hold back Loki, who was a very skilled user of magic in his own right. He’s sure he doesn’t remember the meeting as well as Loki did—it had been his brother who was given a taste of his own medicine, not Thor, who was really served a good pint by the doctor—but he remembers the important bits. Like how the sorcerer supreme defied all laws of physics because magic.

“There’s a logical explanation behind his powers, too,” Bruce sounds totally sure of himself, if a little strangled, and Thor chuckles. Trust a man of science to be unmoved by his belief in rational explanations even when he has seen things that throw it out the window. “I just haven’t figured it out.”

Thor smiles and forcibly crinkles his eyes into little crescents. “Keep telling yourself that, Banner.”

(He doesn’t once pick up the flask he tucked away in his bag during their conversation and it leaves his chest feeling all the lighter.)

The two of them decide to keep walking after getting some rest and eating fruit bars instead of trying to figure out a fire in the middle of nowhere of a foreign planet. Finding proper accommodations would make sleeping a much more comfortable experience than attempting to camp it out in the sand—even if they graze over the uncomfortable topic of units. Banner is Midgardian and whatever units he made for himself during his stint as The Grandmaster’s champion he left behind in Sakaar, and while Thor was once rich enough to buy them multiple spaceships without leaving a dent in his wallet, much of his own units had been used to rebuild Asgard.

They’re dirt broke and neither of them have anything to offer for finding money except for their fighting skills. Or brute strength, which could be helpful if an inhabitant of this planet wants them to break in an enemy’s roof. (They’re not in a position to be picky about ways to make quick units.)

When they spot their first signs of civilization, Thor is so relieved to be amongst other living creatures he’s grateful enough to drop and kiss the ground. He would’ve done it, too, had Banner not taken him by his collar by the time Thor drops to his knees.

“Thor! What are you doing?” Banner hisses.

“I wanted to kiss the ground.” Thor pouts.

“You don’t need to kiss the ground if you were on the ground the entire time,” he supplies helpfully.

“I know, but I just wanted to kiss the ground.”

Several lights beam in the distance. Reds, blues, and yellows blur together as little speckles in the night, practically beacons of light in a desert where the only source of natural light comes from a very far away pink moon. The lights aren’t shaped in any way, not like the lights back on the big cities in Midgard, but they’re still signs that there are other creatures not too far off and it has him both relieved and on edge.

Banner makes a face that has him looking like he’s constipated.

“Uh, Banner—”

“Thor, do you hear anything?” Banner stops in his tracks. Thor follows suit.

Comment dying on his tongue, Thor frowns. His hearing is practically advanced compared to regular humans (he hasn’t tested out whose hearing is better—his or Banner’s—but he’s pretty sure his still wins), but he hasn’t heard so much as trace of music coming from the source of lights.

“No,” he answers, and it eats away the relief he felt, replacing it with the kind of paranoia that has kept him alive until now. “We should proceed with caution.”

“Yeah,” Banner agrees. “It’s not normal for places to be dead silent.”

He didn’t need to tell him twice. Thor nods his agreement and tightens his grip on Stormbreaker. He’d been carrying it with him throughout their entire journey, even from when they were still on the rabbit’s ship, but it’s only now, when he’s on edge and his senses are holding out for a fight, that he feels the full weight of the axe on his arm. Rather than straining his muscles, it’s a comfort, soothing him to know he has its power at his call should he need its assist in a fight.

“You don’t suppose we’re just passing through a conveniently lit area with no inhabitants?” Banner attempts to lighten the mood.

Thor wants to believe that’s the case, but with their combined track record, things are about to turn very sour, very quick.

“It’s cute you’re still hoping.”

Banner rolls his eyes and proceeds his trek without waiting for Thor.

The closer the two of them get to the town, the less they speak, the more their shoulders tense and muscles coil, ready to move and _attackattackattack_ at the first hint of danger. Thor turns his head to glance at Banner, only a little surprised to see Banner looking back at him. The scientist has grim determination and wary acceptance etched upon his features; it’s one expression Thor isn’t foreign to, because it’s exactly the face Banner likes to make in the face of a coming battle.

Banner has never been a fighter, not like Thor who was raised to fight and crush and destroy, but he has long grown used to having no choice in fighting battles. It leaves Thor feeling a little guilty because this is supposed to be a fight-free, stress-free trip, but this is Banner. He has been amongst superheroes and troublemakers long enough (arguably becoming one of them himself) to know what he was getting into when he agreed to accompany Thor.

The Guardians, upon dropping them off to this planet called Gunia, told them they should expect not seeing anything but long desert planes until they’ve walked far enough to encounter its main town. Thor himself hadn’t heard of the planet beforehand, but that’s not very surprising, considering the universe is a vast place and most of Thor’s inter-realm geography is limited to The Seven Realms.

‘The place is pretty much a shithole,’ Rocket said bluntly. The rabbit enjoys putting his newfound Midgardian expressions to good use, especially since it tends to confuse his teammates. Thor can respect that. ‘Nobody respectable goes there. It’s just filled with idiots looking to make quick money.’ Thor did _not_ appreciate being called an idiot, but it’s not like the rabbit shut up when faced with Thor’s disapproving frown.

Gunia’s town looks exactly like a place where nobody respectable would stay at. There are several buildings, each fairly distanced away from each other, and all of them look beaten and run-down with paint on walls that has long cracked and windows that have seen better days. There’s nobody on the roads and everything is eerily empty. The lights are on, though, and Thor realizes now that he’s close enough, he can make out muffled noises from inside the buildings.

However, the realization that they are not alone only serves to place him even further on edge, leaving him to restrain the urge to swing Stormbreaker. Stealth isn’t something he is naturally gifted in—that’s more of Loki’s specialty than his by a long shot—but it’s years of experience that teaches him it’s better not to announce his and Banner’s presence yet.

That is, if no one has already noticed.

Banner’s rubbing his palms together. Nervous tic. “Which of these buildings are we going into?”

The slip of paper the cyborg gave him earlier feels heavy in his pocket.

He uses his free hand to take it out, struggling with the size of his fingers compared to the paper when he tries to unroll it. After several seconds of skin on paper, he manages to open it, though his eyes squint at the barely legible scrawl.

“‘The Pod of Ale’?”

“You don’t suppose they’ve got signs on these buildings?”

Thor shrugs. One way to find out.

They move carefully through the empty street, keeping an eye out for something that signals the location of the bar while they leave their guard up. It isn’t with small amount of amusement Thor wonders what his past self would think of his current behavior, considering all the times he decided to throw caution to the wind and jump headfirst into foreign situations, all reckless abandon.

Banner is the one who finds the place. “Look over there.” It turns out this ‘Pod of Ale’ is the building located at the very edge of the street, right before there’s a two-way street in front of them that leads to Thor knows not where. The name of the bar is actually embedded onto the front of it, just right above the door, with the written equivalent of the Allspeak. Thor sees it written in Asgardian and Banner probably reads it in English.

Thor gestures with his axe. “You want to go in first?”

“Maybe they’ll be more familiar with you,” Bruce evades, making a weak attempt to stand behind Thor instead of staying at his current place, next to him.

“But you’re all… green!” Thor points out. “Whoever’s in there could feel more comfortable seeing someone who does not look like a Midgardian.”

“They could recognize me if they’ve seen me in Sakaar. I was a lot angrier then.”

“Yes, but you’re still _green_.”

Banner frowns. “We should settle this fast. Rock paper scissors, loser has to go in first?”

 

* * *

 

There’s no way Banner won without cheating. Thor doesn’t know how Banner managed it, because Thor has already had firsthand experience in evading the other Avengers’ not-so-sneaky attempts of cheating at rock paper scissors back when they still spent much of their time together, but there was _no_ way Banner actually won over him. Thor is amazing at rock paper scissors, thank you very much.

“You could walk with less distance from me,” he grumbles. It’s ridiculous how Banner attempts to shrink in size behind Thor. He’s big and green, it doesn’t matter if he hides behind Thor, they’ll still notice him fast enough.

Banner has the gall to smile sheepishly. Thor isn’t actually angry so he doesn’t find himself annoyed at the bashful expression, but it’s a close thing. How would Korg state it? ‘Banner is on _thin fucking ice_.’ Yes. That’s the expression he was thinking of.

When they reach the door, Thor hesitates only for a second before he pushes it open. Considering how easily it complies to his gentle push, it leaves him wondering how damaged the bar’s door could be. Probably highly.

A cold gust of air tickles his face as soon as he goes inside the establishment. It’s a nice change from the warmth of the desert (it wasn’t exactly hot, but it wasn’t cold either, and the heat he experienced on his trek from the ship all the way here had him feeling like he was being slowly roasted in a low-temperature oven) and he almost stops to enjoy the air conditioning.

Then, Thor remembers him and Banner are men (technically, one sort-of-man and one god, but he wasn’t being technical) on a mission and he pushes aside the temptation to take a break.

He scans his eyes around the room. (On a side note, it’s disconcerting how one of his eyes—the artificial one—has a duller, less crisp sight than the other. Sometimes it’s odd enough he spends days with that eye taken out, replaced with an eyepatch, but those days are usually few and far in between.)

They aren’t the only patrons visiting the pub. There are several groups, all scattered around the room that smells of mead and fruit of questionable freshness, and they’re all talking in hushed tones. Considering no music is playing and the patrons know how to keep their voice down, it’s no surprise neither him nor Banner heard much when they were standing outside.

Thor notices the furniture is made of wood, an observation that doesn’t go unnoticed by Banner who begins muttering on how ‘this whole planet’s a wild west movie set’ under his breath, and he forces himself to relax his grip on his axe when the patrons simply lift their gazes for a moment to look at them before they go back to their conversations.

No trouble for them yet—not that Thor is holding out on hope their luck will last. When something can go wrong, it will, for the Avengers. (Thanos’ army that hit them when they least expected it after they finished their time heist? Yeah, prime example of that.)

“They’d better serve good mead,” Thor mutters under his breath. He heads straight for the bar, Banner following behind him, and it’s with more effort than he cares to admit that he makes himself comfortable on the wooden stool. It barely fits his arse, and for a moment, Thor is _terrified_ the stool will break underneath his weight. It makes a dangerous, high squeaking noise, but other than that, it manages to hold out.

The amount of relief he feels at that is embarrassing and leaves him with the bitter aftertaste of shame.

“Do you think they serve water?” Banner asks.

“You seek to tempt fate by trying this planet’s water?” He asks incredulously. Gunia is so dry there’s very little possibility of the water here being artificial. That wouldn’t be a problem for Thor with his physiology, but he doesn’t know if it’s Terran-friendly. Or Hulk-friendly, for that matter, but maybe he shouldn’t worry so much over Banner; his Hulk form _had_ survived wielding the Gauntlet, so maybe the same resilience also applied to water of questionable alien origin?

Banner just looks confused. “Water’s not just water everywhere? The water on Sakaar always struck me as kind of weird. I thought it had this weird taste, like watery cheap vodka, but it mostly tasted plain, so I thought that was just a me thing.”

“Oh, Banner.” Thor sighs. “You don’t want to know what The Grandmaster mixed with Sakaar’s water.”

For a moment, Banner’s face gets pinched, horrified, _and_ morbidly curious at the same time; like he doesn’t want to know what The Grandmaster did to his planet’s water. Thor gets it—him even stumbling upon that knowledge was because Valkyrie enjoyed dropping little bits of the (very wild) truth behind Sakaar when she learned how he felt about his (short, but still lightly traumatizing) time on the planet.

“…On second thought, I’m not that thirsty.”

The bartender’s facing their back to them, still, although Thor notices how they’d halted their movement upon hearing his and Banner’s voice. They don’t make an attempt to turn around after regaining their composure, though, instead continuing their previous activity of cleaning the glasses. Odd.

Thor clears his throat. “Bartender?”

“Yes?” The bartender replies in a jarringly familiar voice.

The god of thunder freezes. Next to him, Banner stiffens as well—undoubtedly recognizing the bartender’s voice.

No— _no_. It can’t be.

He hasn’t heard that voice in years. (Not ‘years’ if you don’t count his nightmares and the illusions his mind enjoys tricking him with when he’s as drunk as he can get and the ghosts of his past scream and screech their disappointments at him.)

“I’d like a pint of your finest mead, please.” Thor tries not to sound too strangled. He must’ve failed, because when the words came out of his mouth, they were squeezing against his throat. A crushing pressure on his chest that leaves him breathless, the weight of his words only getting heavier and heavier after they’ve left his lips.

Then, the bartender turns around.

Mismatched eyes meet brilliant greens.

(The same shade of green that haunts him in his sleep.)

“Loki?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before the questions start rolling, here's me attempting to explain everything without spoiling the future chapters:  
> 
> 
> 1\. loki's revival was planned from the start. it's actually the beginning of a cohesive plot forming in the story! the explanation for it comes in the next chapter but next chapter's notes will have me explaining it more thoroughly. there's also an explanation for why he was in the same planet as thorbruce and you'll get that explanation soon.  
>  2\. ngl, when i wrote the first chapter and only had a vague-ish outline, i thought this story would end up being mostly plotless and just a bunch of fun snippets, never really ending but there's always some wacky shit going on -- like some sort of slice of life anime. however, after reading some comics, i gained a burst of inspiration and now you can fully expect that this story will be pretty plot-heavy. it won't take away from the main focus which is thor letting himself heal, but there'll be action, and there'll be a villain. i'll try my best to write and adapt the villain to make sure they're not one-dimensional and can serve as more than just a plot device.  
>  3\. updates might not come as frequently. i'mm still enthused about the story and writing it, but recently, my mom got sick. she's hospitalized and now i spend a lot of time taking care of her in the hospital, so i don't know if i'll always be in the mindset for writing.

> 
>   
> that's it. i hope you enjoyed the chapter! if you leave a comment, i'lll respond (eventually; sometimes it takes me a while because i, uh, suck), but if you don't, that's totally fine and i hope you're still enjoying the story.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/JASONTHORD) or [tumblr](https://janbjornn.tumblr.com/) if you want! see you next time.


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